In Between Realms

Three Days Later

The dim blue light of the Stasis Chamber flickered softly—pulsing in rhythm with Seyfe's breathing. Hushed footsteps echoed in the sterile hallways outside, but within the chamber, time seemed suspended, thick and muffled like a dream underwater.

Seyfe's body remained cocooned in the graft-suit, lines of glowing filament tracing the weaver core integration across his spine and limbs. Tubes connected to his veins hummed as Cryo-salve was steadily pumped into his system, fighting off residual infection and keeping his vitals steady.

But then—

A shudder in his fingers.

His eyelids twitched, then fluttered open, revealing dulled irises slowly regaining focus. The light stung for a moment, his pupils struggling to adjust. His throat was dry, and his mind was caught somewhere between a burning dream and an aching reality.

"...Where…" he rasped, the words barely audible over the hissing of the chamber.

A soft alarm beeped once. Then again. Faster. Machines began to register activity.

Inside the observation room, a medical assistant stood from their post and pressed a panel on the wall. "Subject 017 is regaining consciousness."

Doctors and bio-specialists began filing in—some curious, some anxious, others grim. Aki stood behind the safety glass, silent as always, eyes narrowed on the boy inside.

Back in the chamber, Seyfe winced as his arms fought against the resistance of the tight graft suit. The sensation was surreal—his limbs felt both weightless and heavy, his heartbeat distant yet thunderous in his skull.

He remembered pain. So much pain. Fire coursing through his veins. Dreams filled with voices that didn't sound human. Images of red threads spinning through the darkness. And a name whispered in his thoughts—not his own.

He exhaled, throat dry. "I'm... not dead?"

The chamber door hissed open slowly, the pressurized seal releasing. A doctor stepped forward, cautious.

"You're not dead, Seyfe," the doctor replied with a practiced calm. "But you're also not entirely the same."

Seyfe looked down at his arms. His skin shimmered faintly under the lights. Like veins had been rewritten with starlight, thin glowing lines pulsed beneath the surface.

"What the hell did you do to me…?"

Before the doctor could answer, a flicker of crimson flashed across Seyfe's eyes—a pulse that surged through his neural pathways. Somewhere deep within, the Weaver Core responded, not rejecting him, but breathing with him.

Aki's voice echoed through the intercom above. Her tone was flat, but something about it carried a rare hesitation.

"Seyfe. Don't move too fast. We don't know what you're capable of yet."

Seyfe blinked. "Neither do I."

The doctors guided Seyfe gently down a quiet corridor, his feet barely steady beneath him. He was draped in a loose, sterile gown, a far cry from the scavenger garb he wore just days ago. His body felt both foreign and frighteningly alive—each step tingling, as if the nerves beneath his skin were still trying to decide if they belonged to him.

They brought him into a recovery room. Peaceful. Silent. Everything was white.

Not just the walls—but the floor, the ceiling, even the minimal furniture. The bed, the table, the chair. There were no sharp corners. No personal items. No clocks. Only the faint hum of a ventilation system and the occasional blink of a sensor built into the walls.

Seyfe sat down on the edge of the bed, his legs weak, mind cloudy. He glanced up to see a soft red dot following his movements—a tracking sensor.

"Observation room, huh..." he muttered to himself, his voice dry.

A doctor placed a tray on the table—nutrient water and a pale, almost gelatinous meal he couldn't identify.

"We'll continue monitoring your vitals from here," she said with a practiced smile that didn't reach her eyes. "Rest. The graft is stable—for now."

She didn't wait for his reply. The door slid shut behind her with a soft pneumatic hiss, and a lock clicked.

He was alone.

Seyfe exhaled and stared at the blank ceiling. In a way, it was worse than the stasis chamber. At least there, he was unconscious—adrift in nothingness. Here, his thoughts had nowhere to run. Everything was too clean. Too still.

He lifted his hand, turned it slowly under the light.

The glow from the runes hadn't fully faded.

Thin, branching patterns shimmered faintly across his forearm, like frost on glass. They didn't hurt... but they didn't feel like they belonged either. As if someone had traced symbols into his soul and now he was just waiting for them to speak.

"...What the hell did you make me into?" he whispered.

No one answered.

But the cameras watched. And beyond them—Aki stood behind another wall, arms crossed, eyes locked on the monitor. Silent. Waiting.

Seyfe hesitated as he pulled on the strange gloves. The fabric was cool—too cool—and the wires along the seams seemed to twitch faintly, like they were aware. As soon as both gloves were on, the drawer retracted with a hiss and the room dimmed slightly. Only the sterile white glow above him remained.

"Begin standing posture protocol," the voice instructed. "Hold for ten seconds. Do not move."

Seyfe rose to his feet, his body still stiff. The world swayed just a little before settling. The moment he stabilized, a series of soft pulses thrummed through the gloves, crawling up his arms.

Then came the whisper.

Not audible—no. It was internal. Like thoughts that weren't his own briefly flickering inside his skull.

His breathing hitched.

"Now lift your right arm. Extend your fingers."

He obeyed, reluctantly. As he did, the threads in the gloves surged with light—pale blue lines pulsing from fingertip to elbow, mimicking the rhythm of a heartbeat.

"Synchronicity at 46%. Core is stabilizing, but reading minor resistance across neural pathways," another voice—fainter, farther—reported from the other side of the glass.

"Push further. Let's reach the threshold."

Seyfe grimaced. "What threshold?"

No answer.

The pulses from the gloves intensified. He felt the core inside him respond—not like a machine, but something alive, ancient, testing him back. A searing heat threaded along his spine as if invisible runes were being carved into his nerves.

His knees buckled, and he dropped to one hand, gasping.

"Core resistance spike! 72%. He's not synchronizing, he's pushing back—"

"No... wait," the head doctor interrupted. "He's adapting. Look at the waveform."

On the unseen monitors, his neural patterns were stabilizing around the runic threads. Like a parasite and host coming to terms with their symbiosis.

In the room, Seyfe was trembling. Sweat dripped from his chin.

Then everything went silent.

The gloves deactivated.

"Phase One complete," the voice said flatly, but there was an unmistakable undertone of awe beneath the clinical tone. "We've never seen that level of adaptation... not without cascade failure."

As Seyfe lay on the sterile floor, eyes half-lidded and chest rising unevenly, the white walls of the observation chamber hissed open.

A middle-aged doctor with graying temples and a clipboard stepped inside. His coat was crisp, but the lines on his face told of long nights and heavier decisions.

He didn't speak right away—he crouched beside Seyfe, pulled out a small scanner, and ran it across the boy's arm. A soft chime rang out.

"You're alive. That's a good start." His voice was dry, but not unkind. He set the clipboard aside and met Seyfe's gaze.

"I know you're confused. Probably pissed. Maybe terrified. But you handled Phase One better than most trained Veilers ever could. That's... significant."

Seyfe coughed, swallowing the metallic taste in his mouth. "You... call that a test?"

The doctor gave a faint nod. "Yes. Phase One was designed to determine compatibility between your nervous system and the integrated weaver's core. Not just mechanically—but spiritually. The runes in the core are semi-sentient. They react to the essence of the host. Think of it as the core deciding whether you deserve it."

He sat back slightly, expression more serious now.

"We didn't tell you beforehand because if you anticipated the reaction, your body might've rejected it out of fear or tension. The threadwork is primal—it reads your thoughts before they even form."

Seyfe blinked, groaning. "You could've told me it'd feel like I was being carved from the inside out."

"If you felt carved, that means the threads didn't resist you. They were… mapping."

He paused, then added more quietly:

"And we needed to see how deep the infection from the echoform had taken root. Your reaction gave us more than data—it gave us a theory."

Seyfe raised an eyebrow, still catching his breath.

The doctor leaned in slightly.

"You didn't just survive the infection… you adapted to it. And whatever you are now, whatever happened out there, you're not just some lucky kid from the dead cities. You're something new."

He stood, nodding toward the door.

"Rest. Phase Two won't be kind, but if Phase One's any indication… you might be the first to live through all three."

The door hissed shut behind him, leaving Seyfe in silence again—except now, it wasn't just the room watching him.

It was the core, the runes… and something still deeper inside.